John Oliver Explains Why the Most Important Number in Your Life Is Bullsh*t

It's the number that determines whether banks will lend you money. It's the number that landlords use to decide if they want to let you rent an apartment. It's the number some employers will use to choose whether to hire you or not. It's your credit score, and it's "the single most important three-digit number in your whole life," as John Oliver said at the beginning of his main Last Week Tonight segment on credit reports. Say you're trying to get a cell phone plan or get utilities for your house or apply for student loans or get insurance—you'd probably hope the number determining all of this is 100 percent accurate. And it is—95 percent of the time, as credit reporting agencies like to brag. This sounds like a pretty impressive number until you realize, as Oliver pointed out on Sunday, that these agencies hold records for 200 million individuals. That five-percent error rate impacts 10 million people, or, you know, a group equivalent to the entire population of Sweden.

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So, that's 10 million people with credit report errors that can completely screw up their lives. Oliver runs down a series of individuals who have been labeled as the wrong person, as a terrorist, or even dead. The fault lands with the three major reporting agencies—TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax—who have been screwing up with no accountability since the '90s. As Oliver points out, "If every twentieth Frosty that Wendy's sold turned out to be a cup of warm goat semen, we would want some accountability and we'd want it fast."

In response he's started three of his own companies: There's Equifacks, which "takes shelter animals to a customer's home where the animals lick peanut butter of people's genitals." There's Experianne, which "sends people to whisper passages of Mein Kampf into babies' ears" And finally, TramsOnion, which sells steaks made from the flesh of dead Sea World orcas.

"It would clearly be an absolute disaster for the credit agencies if they were mistaken for these companies," Oliver said. "But don't worry. I'm sure that won't happen 95 percent of the time, but apparently, that's good enough anyway right?"

It certainly, certainly would be horrible to have your identity confused with such garbage companies.

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